The Australian Broadcasting Company was a consortium of entertainment interests formed in 1929 to supply radio programs for broadcast on the former "A-class" transmitters contracted to the Federal Government's National Broadcasting Service. The Royal Commission of 1927 had recommended full nationalisation in the style of the BBC, but the conservative government of the time chose this out-sourced approach instead.
Funding was supplied through licenses rather than through advertising. However, license fee income was low, jeopardising its viability.
Finally in 1932, the Australian Government did fully nationalise the company through the Australian Broadcasting Commission Act (1932) and it became the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
See also : History of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.”
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)